In Phase III of Project Get Off the Grid (for those who haven’t been reading previous posts on Project Get Off the Grid, click here to catch up), I haven’t made many changes. Differing variables in the 2008 and 2009 periods of Phase II, namely a ten-day trip to Mexico in 2008, during which I used virtually no electricity, have made a comparison of the two periods difficult. Therefore, in order to get a better idea of the effects my behavioral changes made in Phase II, I’m not doing anything drastic during Phase III.

I have, however, made one small change. I installed a low-flow Evolve shower-head in my shower. Low-flow shower-heads are officially classified as those that use 1.5 gallons of water per minute or less, and Evolve, a company strictly devoted to making eco-friendly shower-heads, has developed a low-flow shower-head that has another water-saving feature.

For whatever crappy plumbing-related reason, I have to run my shower for a few minutes before the water is warm enough for me to comfortably step in, which means I often turn my water on and then leave the bathroom to occupy myself with other things for a bit – checking my email, watching Sportscenter’s Top Ten, etc. More often than not, I return to a shower that is already spraying – and wasting – hot water. I’m sure there are a lot of folks out there like me.

Evolve’s sleek, low-flow shower-heads are specially equipped to turn off once the water temperature reaches a comfortable 95 degrees. When I’m ready to get into the shower, I simply pull a little cord on the shower-head and the water turns on immediately, already at shower temperature. That way, I can watch Sportscenter, check emails, and mess around with Pandora radio stations to my heart’s content, all the while not worrying about wasting any hot water. When I’m ready, I just get into the shower, pull the cord, and I’ve got hot water.

How does this relate to Project Get Off the Grid? Well, it not only saves hot water, it also saves energy, which is used to heat water. When hot water runs down the drain, we’re not only wasting water, we’re wasting energy, which gets tacked right on to our Duke Energy bills.

Although I think the low-flow and turn-off features of my new shower-head will probably save me some water, I won’t be able to quantify it, because I don’t get billed specifically for water use. I’ll admit the lower pressure probably lengthens my showers a bit, but not by much. As far as the energy savings go, I think they will be minimal, but hey, every little bit counts. Try out an Evolve shower-head and you’ll save water, energy, and, eventually, even money.

For those who haven’t read my old posts about Project Get Off the Grid, here’s a quick summary. During each Duke Energy billing period, I’ll be making specific changes in my everyday behavior to reduce my overall energy use. I’ll maintain all the changes I’ve made since the start of the project, adding new changes during each phase in hopes that the accumulated effects of these new habits will have an increasingly beneficial impact on my energy efficiency and, as a result, my energy bills. At the end of each period, to quantify the impact of the changes I’ve made, I’ll be comparing current energy bills to ones for the same period from last year, then posting the results.

In addition maintaining the habits I developed in Phase I of Project Get Off the Grid, I made the following changes in Phase II:

• I resolved to leave my thermostat off, unless it got unreasonably hot or cold in my house
• With two weeks remaining in the billing period, I replaced two of my five standard bathroom vanity bulbs with CFL bulbs (one of the old standard bulbs had burned out, cost: ~$9)

And that’s all. Nothing too crazy, nothing too complicated, nothing too difficult. Believe it or not, I never had to turn my thermostat on once and the temperature of my place never went below 67 degrees and never went above 76 degrees. All houses are different and weather varies by region, and I realize this may not work for everyone, but maybe it’s worth giving it a shot.

Anyway, here are the results:

I apparently managed to cut my energy costs by 3% and my overall energy use by 11%, as compared to last year. Although my monthly charges were very low, the reductions in year over year energy consumption were actually smaller than they were during the previous month, when I had my thermostat on for the majority of the time and I hadn’t installed any CFL bulbs. It all seems somewhat counterintuitive. I’ve just implemented more energy-saving techniques, so one would think I’d be even more energy efficient.

However, I think I’ve identified the explanation for the disappointing, and somewhat puzzling, results; just over a year ago today, I took a ten-day trip to Mexico to see the Monarchs of El Rosario (highly recommended) and explore the Mayan Riviera, which probably kept my home electricity use down to just about nothing for over one third of the billing period. This could explain both the unusually low monthly charges, as well as the fact that I didn’t reduce my energy consumption as much as I did during the January-February period. It’s certainly a possibility and, hopefully, next month’s bill will show a spike in energy efficiency, supporting my suspicions.

In any case, even though I think it might be underestimating, if I can maintain last month’s energy-saving habits over the course of a year, I’d save about $12.50, or 3% (that’s incorporating Duke’s price increases) versus the year before. More importantly, that’s reducing my energy consumption by over 11%, or 475 KWH per year. I have a feeling Phase III of Project Get Off the Grid is going to yield the best results yet. Stay tuned for updates.

One thing that really surprised me during this process was how insignificant the differences in temperature in my house were when I had the thermostat off, even at night when it dipped into the low 30s outside. When my thermostat is on, the temperature of my house is maintained at 73 degrees, but when I turned my thermostat off, I never saw the temperature dip below a still comfortable 70 degrees. Curious, I decided what I would be doing in Phase II of Project Get Off the Grid: In addition to continuing the behaviors I developed in Phase I, I am leaving my thermostat off, completely, for the entire billing period.

Thus far, despite temperatures ranging from the 20s to the high 70s in Charlotte during the past few weeks, the temperature of my house has not broken a range of 67 to 75 degrees. When it does get cool, I put on a sweatshirt. When it gets warm, I take it off. I am a genius.

The relatively steady temperature in my house is probably a result of all types of variables that won’t necessarily exist universally, so turning off thermostats may not be practical for everyone. First of all, my house is actually a condo unit in an eight-story building, so it’s insulated on three sides by other units and only one side is exposed to the outdoors. Also, the exposed side faces south with tons of big windows, so I get the benefit of the sun’s warmth (and natural light) for the majority of the day. Lastly, I’ve already got insulating double-paned windows, so I don’t lose warm/cool air to the outdoors as quickly as I would with traditional windows. My house seems to be pretty good at regulating its own temperature during the winter, but I’ll be curious to see if it turns into a miserable hell sauna during hot summer days.

Updates to come…

Here’s a quick summary of the plan for those who haven’t read earlier posts about Project Get Off the Grid. Since I live alone in a relatively small, one bedroom condo unit and I’m not there very often because of work and travel, my home energy needs are already small, roughly, according to my monthly Duke Energy bills, $44 or 520 KWH per month. Although that’s already way below the average for a one-person home, I still wanted to see what kind of impact I could have on my energy use by changing some everyday habits.

In Phase I of Project Get Off the Grid, I resolved to do the following things:

• Turn off any lights that didn’t have to be on
• Use natural light whenever possible
• Unplug my cell phone, blackberry, and laptop unless they were charging (this means I never had a fully charged device plugged in)
• I should also mention I turned off my thermostat during the last week or so, because we had some unseasonably warm weather

Simple as that. I wasn’t perfect all the time, but overall I think I did a pretty good job. More importantly, I developed some great habits. So, with no further delay, here are the results:

Basically, just by being more disciplined about turning off lights and, occasionally, my thermostat, and eliminating “phantom” charges associated with some of my portable devices, my electricity use and monthly bill went down by 18.8% and 7.7%, respectively, versus last year (I guess Duke Energy snuck in some price increases). My new habits saved me about $0.12 per day or, if I continued them for the next eleven months, $43.80 per year.

To some, $44 over the course of a year may seem somewhat inconsequential, but consider how it would impact someone with a larger electricity bill. If someone’s monthly bill were, for example, a more normal $100, saving 7.7% would represent cumulative annual savings of $92.40. Not too bad.

Plus, in terms of actual energy use, I was 18.8% more efficient, which I’m pretty pumped about, because that’s the true measure of how I’m affecting our environment. The savings are just icing on the cake.

There’s simply no reason why any person, Average Joe or not, shouldn’t be developing the same habits I did over the course of the last month or two. It required virtually no effort and didn’t cost me a cent. In fact, it saved me almost $5, a number I expect will grow tremendously as long as I maintain these new habits. To top it all off, I’m helping the environment. And that’s just Phase I. In Phase II, which I’ll introduce shortly, I’ll be incorporating other energy saving techniques to reduce my dependence on the Grid even further.

It has quickly become apparent that the hardest part about turning stuff off is simply getting yourself in the habit of doing so. During the first few days of this little experiment, I found myself struggling to remember to switch off lights as I left rooms or to unplug my laptop before going to bed. However, after a week or so of forcing myself to be energy efficient, turning things off became a matter of habit and I was doing it without even noticing. Now I almost never have anything turned on unnecessarily, and I’m not even trying. Point is, the biggest hurdle during this whole thing has been developing a habit. Once that’s accomplished, it’s just second nature.

This experience reminded me of something that might prove useful to families trying to save energy. When I was about 10 years old, living with my mom, dad, and brother, our entire family was horrible about turning off lights. To have lights on in every room of our house, whether or not people were around, whether or not it was nighttime or daytime, was not out of the ordinary. Our electricity bills were just stupid, even though I had two working parents and my brother and I were in school all day. Finally, my dad got fed up and told my brother and me that, for one whole year, he would pay us the difference between every month’s energy bill and the bill from the same period the year before. It’s amazing how a little bit of financial incentive can make 10 year old kids shape up. We starting religiously turning off lights, even scolding our parents when they forgot, and it wasn’t long before the entire family was unconsciously turning off lights when we left rooms. Our electricity bills were soon significantly lower.

This plan didn’t save my dad any money up front (because it went to my brother and me), but it did save energy and establish great habits. And once the habits were formed, they never really went away, even after a year had passed and the financial incentive was removed. I’m willing to bet that, in the long run, my dad’s plan saved him a boatload of money. Could be something to try for those with kids.

My first resolution during this transition to a greener life is, simply enough, to use less energy. Our truly massive energy needs (in 2005, humans apparently consumed 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 J of energy), and the way we go about creating and using that energy, have been a significant cause of environmental damage and continue to be a serious threat to our environment’s short and long-term well-being. One of the greenest actions we can take is to consume less energy.

Although there are tons of ways to decrease energy use, I’m starting with the basics: turning off lights, appliances, computers, etc. – anything that uses electricity – when I don’t need them. And that’s not all. Many appliances, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, kitchen appliances, cell phones, etc., actually drain a small amount of electricity just by being plugged in, even when they’re, technically, switched “off”. With that in mind, I’m also resolving to unplug certain pieces of electronic equipment when I’m not actually using them, which, for now, will include my cell phone, blackberry, and laptop. I’ll unplug any of them when they’re fully charged, and I won’t keep them plugged in overnight. I’d include my alarm clock in this category, but showing up late to work won’t exactly strengthen my paper thin job security – thank you, credit crisis. I won’t be unplugging some items, like my TV, VCR, and DVD player, because accessing the plugs would require moving furniture, which would suck. In any case, I figure that’s a good starting point. Project Get Off the Grid: Phase I. Easy enough.

Although having certain electronic devices plugged in directly to your wall socket does drain energy, plugging these devices into a power strip and switching the strip’s switch to “off” will solve that problem. For now, since I don’t currently own a power strip, I’ll just stick to the current plan. Power strip has been added to my grocery list. Baby steps…

In order to really get a feel for the difference this small behavioral change can make, I’ll be comparing this period’s energy bill to my energy bill from the same period last year.

Now, this may not be a perfect comparison, considering many variables come into play, such as time of year and associated weather conditions (how hard my heating/cooling has to work), how often I’m actually home (my work hours were significantly worse at this time last year), my travel schedule, etc. However, I’m hoping it’ll at least give us a rough idea of what kind of impact such changes can have. I’m fairly certain it won’t be a huge one, because I’ve read lighting is apparently only about 10% of a typical home’s energy use and that’s the major change I’ll be making, but I’m still embarrassingly curious, and secretly (OK, not secretly anymore) hoping it makes a noticeable difference. Seeing a quantifiable difference (and quantifiable savings, something we all can relate to) on paper will probably give me a little motivation to stay in the habit of “disconnecting” (mind you, I am only “disconnecting” when there is absolutely no need to be “connected” – certainly not a difficult task).

Updates to come.